Media Criticism Key Terms

Front 1

Time-Based vs. Space-Based

Back 1

The key to understanding a civilization lies within their organization of time and pace with regards to communication.
Time-based civilizations are concerned with history, tradition, and religion. they are relatively fixed and not likely to change their customs and continuality.
EX: words on stone
Space-Based civilizations are concerned with a growth in empire, concerned with the present, secular authority and territorial expansion.
EX: words on paper

Front 2

Agenda Setting

Back 2

The ability to direct people’s attention toward certain issues. Bernard Cohen claimed that the news "may not be successful in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about. Agenda setting approach looks to the news media as setting the public agenda.

Front 3

Ownership of the Media

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The information presented to the public will be biased to the interests of the corporation.

Front 4

Mediums FUNDING sources

Back 4

the interests of advertisers come before the reporting of the news

Front 5

SOURCING

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a relationship between the media and parts of the government forms because of the need for continuous information which comes from government sectors such as the pentagon that have the necessary material sources.

Front 6

FLAK

Back 6

negative responses to a media statement or program, intentional efforts to manage public information. (Ex. Phone call from the white house to Dan Rather)

Front 7

ANTI- IDEOLOGY

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exploit public fear and hatred of groups that are a potential threat.

Front 8

Fox Effect

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a theory that the news station FOX has had a major impact on the conduct or domestic politics and news coverage in the United States.

Front 9

Identity Politics

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political action to advance the interests of members of a group whose members see themselves as oppressed, such as race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, etc. It is a process of consciousness-raising that focuses on the diverse forms of identity, and entails some degree of separatism.

Front 10

Structure vs. Agency

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Structures : rules to be followed, constraints on human actions, provide sense of comfort rules
Agency: choices we have made within independent intention and undetermined human actions.

Front 11

Cultural Studies

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Political economic groups enabling a distinct analysis
Ex. CCCS( Center for Contemporary Culture Studies) The University of Birmingham, England.
Identity politics: political movement on group id
Ex. Clip in class Dave Chappell’s racial draft
Development of cultural studies:
Camera angles # viewed, value power of difference, image of women in advertisements, stereotypes driven by the media,

Front 12

Disney

Back 12

Conglomerate which owns ABC TV and radio networks, 10 TV stations and 72 radio stations; Radio Disney, ESPN radio, ABC News Radio. Cable TV: Disney Channel US and International, ESPN ESPN2 ESPNews, ABS family, toon Disney, SOAPnet, holdings in A&E and liftetime. Waltdisnet pictures/tv, Touchstone, ABC TV studios, Miramax films, Bueno Vista productions, the muppets, Pixar, publishingdisney, hyperion books music labels Hollywood records, bueno vista records, waltdisney records, Disney parks and resorts, 11 theme parks and 3 crusie lines, ESPN zone, Disney theatrical group, consumer products, baby Einstein, internet groups, and Disney stores.

Front 13

Dominant Ideology

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the set of common beliefs and values shared by mist people in a society. The ruling classes ideas.

Front 14

PACs

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(Political Action Committee) they elect political candidate, federal election then collect money from members and donate it to a political campaign. Hard money: cash raised by guidelines of FCC individual gives so much. Limits PACs donate direct.
Soft money: given to others not direct

Front 15

Technological Determinism

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Technology works directly and decisively to form and shape how people feel, act, and determine the world. Williams defines it as "internal knowledge" which has caused...
1) Media to have a particular relationship with society; technological properties of the mediums don't determine anything--we must look at how or how not they are used.
2) People have to make decisions on how media is consumed

Front 16

Medium Theory

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The relationship between media and social change; the understanding (internalized) of acceptable media use in certain context and what the effects are. Technologies are not neutral pieces of machinery.

Front 17

Media Literacy

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The ability to analyze the messages that inform, entertain, and deliver messages to us everyday; the analysis of social structures and how the messages are being created. Encourages a cultural studies perspective which looks at separate groups enabling a distinct analysis, apart from the mainstream canon.

Front 18

Global Village

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McLuhan's view: an electronic nervous system (the media) was rapidly integrating the planet -- events in one part of the world could be experienced from other parts in real-time, which is what human experience was like when we lived in small villages.

Front 19

Screen ubiquity

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It is in Kevin Kelly’s Becoming Screen Literate. Everywhere we look, we see screens. Screens playing video pop up in the most unexpected places — like A.T.M. machines and supermarket checkout lines and tiny phones. These ever-present screens have created an audience for very short moving pictures, as brief as three minutes, while cheap digital creation tools have empowered a new generation of filmmakers, who are rapidly filling up those screens. We are headed toward screen ubiquity.

Front 20

Herman Gray's three types of discursive practices

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Gray suggests that contemporary images of African Americans are anchored by three kinds of discursive practices. 1, Assimilationist (invisibility) television discourses treat the social and political issues of black presence in particular and racism in general as individual problems. “Family Ties”, “The Golden Girls” 2, Pluralist (separate-but-equal) discourses situate black characters in domestically centered black worlds and circumstances that essentially parallel those of whites. “Family Matters”, “227” 3, Multiculturalist (Diversity) positions African American culture at the very center of its social and cultural universe. “Frank’s Place”, “Roc”

Front 21

The Cosby Show

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It strategically used the Huxtables’ upper-middle-class status to invite audience to think about identifications across race, gender, and class lines. Its most significant contribution to television’s representations of blacks and the ongoing discursive adjustments that are central to such a project has been the way that it repositioned and recoded blackness and black (middle-class) subjectivity within television’s own discursive and institutional practices. Gray argues that in The Cosby Show, the key elements of assimilationist and pluralist practices remained, but it moved some distance away from these elements through its attempt to explore the interiors of black lives and subjectivities from the angle of African Americans.

Front 22

Vertical integration vs. horizontal integration

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Vertical integration owns every tier of your industry from idea to production to distribution to sale. It borders on illegal. Fears associated with vertical integration are that there are few motives for innovation or to create a high quality product, and prices can inflate.
Horizontal integration is the ownership of several companies that do the same thing. An example would be if one person owned all the movie studios. Problems/fears associated with horizontal integration are that it fosters a lack of diversity, price inflation, and barriers to entry.
The conglomeration that is going on right now is a frightening mix of the two. (See Time Warner for an example of vertical integration.) Thankfully, it hasn’t quite gotten to the point of a monopoly yet. The conglomeration happened as a result of the repeal of Fin-Syn and the 1996 Telecommunications Act.

Front 23

Time Warner

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Is the largest of the Media Conglomerates, and is a fantastic example of synergy. The whole of Time Warner is greater than the sum of all its media holdings. It made over $46 billion last year and has significant cable, film, internet, and publishing holdings as well as a joint broadcast venture with CBS (the CW). Its cable holdings include Turner Broadcasting, HBO, and local cable channels. Its film and TV content includes Warner Bros. Pictures and Television, a massive film library and Warner Bros. Animation. Their Internet holdings include AOL, Road Runner and numerous websites. Their publishing empire includes Time Inc., one of the world’s largest publishing companies.
They also own a number of theaters, retail stores and Moviefone which is pretty close to vertical integration (they hire writers at Warner Bros. Pictures to write movies for them, then they sell tickets for people to see the film in their theaters).

Front 24

The public interest

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The public interest relates to the Market Model vs. the Public Model. The original idea behind broadcasting was that the networks could use the public airwaves as long as they provided programming that served the public interest, convenience, and necessity. The problem is, who should decide what serves the public interest? Some would say that it is educational and family-oriented programming (which is why the major networks all feature nightly news programs ? it is educational programming designed to serve the public interest). However, others would say, as Mark Fowler did, that ?the public?s interest is the public interest.? They would prefer to let the Market govern what is and what is not in the public’s best interest.

Front 25

The "liberal media”

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The liberal media is an idea discussed extensively in the Robert McChesney article from this week. Right Wing Criticism and Political Coverage.? He identifies the four claims that right wing critics make to allege the liberalism of the media: ?1) the decisive power over the news lies with journalists-owners and advertisers are irrelevant or relatively powerless; 2) journalists are political liberals; 3) journalists abuse their power to advance liberal politics-thus breaking the professional code; and 4) objective journalists would almost certainly present the world exactly as seen by contemporary U.S. conservatives.? He refutes all of those points, pointing out that capitalism drives the media, therefore advertisers will never be subject to the journalists. He also states that journalists tend to be socially liberal, it’s true, but tend to be more conservative in terms of economics and defense. He claims that a journalist could not advance liberal politics and would not for fear of being accused of being ?leftist,? and therefore tend to be more conservative in their reporting. Finally, he says that it is ridiculous to propose that favorable coverage of Republicans and unfavorable coverage of Democrats is unbiased while the opposite would be biased.
Other examples could be drawn from Outfoxed, and it’s discussion of Fox News, or the Bill Moyers ?Buying the War? The show we watched about the lead-up to the Iraq war.

Front 26

Syndication

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is the selling of rights to rebroadcast programming. Until recently networks did not own the programs they broadcast because fin-syn (the syn is syndication) limited the three networks’ ability to set syndication rights and kept their oligopoly from controlling all production. In 1993 when fin-syn was repealed the networks took advantage of the deregulation and soon their own studios for their own sub-channels, which blossomed up at the time to accommodate this, produced the majority of their programming. It is thus increasingly difficult for independent production companies to get their shows on the air. Also, syndication applies to shows like Home Improvement (which was produced by non-network means), which after 104 episodes sold the rights to play these episodes to other networks.

Front 27

Synergy

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is the dynamic where components of a company work together to produce a benefit that would be impossible for a single, separately operated unit of a company. Different parts of a conglomerate exploit each other’s resources for the benefit of the whole. Thus departments of a conglomerate can cross-promote. For instance, synergy is seen in the Harry Potter franchise because the same company can produce the films, air the commercials, publish articles about the actors, and sell merchandise.

Front 28

Hegemony

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is the concept of ideological domination and cultural coercion by the powerful forces in charge seeking to validate and maintain their authority. It is very subtle, put into the public’s consciousness as ‘common sense’ or ‘natural’ so that it is not questioned or challenged. It is fluid, however, constantly adapting and in need of reinforcement at all times because as individual’s have new experiences they may begin to question the system. Schools, religion, and the media enforce the public’s consent that enables hegemony.

Front 29

Al-Jazeera

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An Arab news network, which premiered, in the late 1990’s. It offers a mix of news, talk shows, and educational programs. It is the only substantial free press in the region and as such is regularly banned from airing in certain areas.

Front 30

Roseanne

Back 30

was a sitcom in the 90’s starring Roseanne bar as a middle-class American woman who defied the common stereotypes of wives and mothers in the media. She was loud, crude, and overweight and rejected many ideas of feminism. The show depicted a family far more normal than most on TV at the time, with realistic issues and settings. The show challenged the hegemony that women should be perfect mothers and wives, always submissive, caring, and feminine.

Front 31

Financial Interest and Syndication Rules (Fin-Syn)

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1995. Prevented networks from owning their own programs or from reselling their own shows for re-runs. That is to say networks couldn’t produce their own content. It enforced a separation between the networks and the studios.

Front 32

Concentration vs. conglomeration

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Concentration: when only a few corporations have power. Ex: Owning only TV networks. AKA horizontal integration
Conglomeration: having power over various facets of an industry. Ex: Owning TV network, production studio, movie studio etc. AKA Vertical integration

Front 33

Telecommunications Act 1996

Back 33

It allowed anyone the entrance into the communications business. Promoted consolidation and allowed big media to get bigger by raising the cap to 35% max ownership. It promoted corporation unions between broadcast, radio, print, etc. Ex: Allowed phone companies to enter the cable market.

Front 34

Market Model vs. Public Sphere Model

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Market: It’s strictly economic and is primarily concerned with answering to its advertisers. It’s not in favor of government regulation. It makes people into consumers. It favors a free market. The TV is another “appliance” analogy.
Public Sphere: Its primary concern is the public interest, the people, the citizens. It believes that a focus on the market alone does not equal a good system. It should represent a diversity of ideas, representations, and information even if they are not economically popular. People who favor this model believe that citizens need full access to a full range of information in order to create a democratic society And it calls for a broader, wider array of information for all. It believes: the market model is not free for all and is only for the popular; that it’s too narrow; and that it ignores the political and cultural.

Front 35

Financial Interest and Syndication Rules (Fin-Syn)

Back 35

1995. Prevented networks from owning their own programs or from reselling their own shows for re-runs. That is to say networks couldn’t produce their own content. It enforced a separation between the networks and the studios.

Front 36

Concentration vs. conglomeration

Back 36

Concentration: when only a few corporations have power. Ex: Owning only TV networks. AKA horizontal integration
Conglomeration: having power over various facets of an industry. Ex: Owning TV network, production studio, movie studio etc. AKA Vertical integration

Front 37

Telecommunications Act 1996

Back 37

It allowed anyone the entrance into the communications business. Promoted consolidation and allowed big media to get bigger by raising the cap to 35% max ownership. It promoted corporation unions between broadcast, radio, print, etc. Ex: Allowed phone companies to enter the cable market.

Front 38

Market Model vs. Public Sphere Model

Back 38

Market: It’s strictly economic and is primarily concerned with answering to its advertisers. It’s not in favor of government regulation. It makes people into consumers. It favors a free market. The TV is another “appliance” analogy.
Public Sphere: Its primary concern is the public interest, the people, the citizens. It believes that a focus on the market alone does not equal a good system. It should represent a diversity of ideas, representations, and information even if they are not economically popular. People who favor this model believe that citizens need full access to a full range of information in order to create a democratic society And it calls for a broader, wider array of information for all. It believes: the market model is not free for all and is only for the popular; that it’s too narrow; and that it ignores the political and cultural.